Picture Word Inductive Model / Vocabulary

In a search designed originally designed to find some creative interpersonal speaking activities I came across Edutopia's article "Using Photos with English Language Learners."  It was here that I first learned of the Picture Word Inductive Model or PWMI. (I don't know if this makes me way behind the times but it does make me wonder why ELL and LA teachers don't share more resources...)

I've long enjoyed using photos as a speaking or writing prompt in my classes but I really liked the format of the PWMI and decided to give it a shot.

A colleague recently shared a folder of great photographs that he uses but I wanted to find something that could lend itself to the vocabulary we'd been learning. A quick Internet search for "pictures that tell a story" yielded a ton of resources. I decided on this one from Printaholic.com:

Image credit: http://www.printaholic.com/15-cool-pictures-that-tell-a-story/

I asked students, in groups of three, to come up with twenty vocabulary words that described what they saw in the picture. Students were given three minutes to do this and many groups came up with more than twenty words. I asked groups to share out and, with the image projected on the board, I labeled the photo.

The next task was to classify the words into four different groups. I explained that groups were entirely up to them and could be groups according to words type, an overarching theme, even words that began with the same letter. When they finished they had to give each group a title.

Independently (this can be done in groups as well but I wanted to mix it up), they had to write four more words for each group. This time the words didn't have to correspond to the picture but they had to fit the group. Students worked alone on this for five minutes and then shared their words with their groups.

Now it was time to start asking some questions. I started with some basic questions like ¿Quiénes son? ¿Dónde están? ¿Qué hacen? ¿Están durmiendo? 

The students had a ton of vocabulary at their disposal so I started pressing for details, making sure to point out particular vocabulary words I was using. I let the group discussion go for about five minutes- enough so that students had a good outline for a story- and then had students write independently for the rest of class. The directions were to use the vocabulary to describe in 100 words what was happening in the photo and the responses were phenomenal!

While I like to focus more on input rather than output in my lower levels, it is true that everyone (parents, admin, even students themselves) want and expect to be able to actually use the language and I thought this was a great opportunity to get those creative juices flowing! I was so pleased with the outcome of this activity that I found some more interesting photos and made a couple of worksheets to use as sub plans. In the sub plans I asked students to exchange stories, read their partners' story and write down four questions about something in the story they'd like to know more about. The author of the story is then asked to go back and include the answers to these questions in their story.  It might be fun to do this as a speaking and listening activity in class.

Word Walls / Vocabulary Instruction

Word Wall in my classroom for Los Baker van a Perú

When I first started teaching at my school six years ago each classroom was required to display a series of bulletin boards. Because we were an IB school we were required to have an IB Board, because it was meant to boost achievement, we were required to post a Data Wall and there was the requisite that each teacher should have a Word Wall in their room. I didn't object; it seemed logical that a language teacher should have target language vocabulary posted in the classroom. Yet, one thing that has long bothered me is how to incorporate that word wall into daily instruction so that it is not just a classroom decoration but is instead is a tool that students can use to practice and acquire vocabulary. I should say that I use the word wall, it reminds me to incorporate vocabulary structures into my speech and I often find myself referencing it when I'm talking. The problem is that I'm not sure to what extent my students are using it. So, I've begun brainstorming some ideas. As I continue to make word walls for my units I hope to add to this post and, as always, if anyone else has any good ideas please share!

Word Walls for Story Re-tells: Throughout a unit I introduce students to new vocabulary structures and, after the kids have them in their "student dictionaries," I tack them up on the word wall. This is to say that I don't put vocabulary on the wall that the students aren't familiar with. As a review activity, I'm thinking of having students in pairs, use the words on the wall either to re-tell the story that we have been reading and/or creating in class. While one student talks the other student can keep track of the number of vocabulary structures used. I'm thinking it would be good to give students a goal of maybe using ten or fifteen structures in a story re-tell within a specific period of time say, for example, four minutes. Of course, prizes for students who can do it!

Gesture Competition: In my class each time I teach a new vocabulary structure I teach it with a gesture. I do it to help them remember the structure and also for the little bit of physical activity it provides. I was thinking of doing a variation on the vocabulary game where the class forms two lines and the two students at the front of each line compete to give the definition of a structure. In this version, students would compete to give the correct gesture. Could be done as a quick end of the class wrap up activity or as prep before a vocabulary quiz.

Word Review (need a catchier title): Place students in groups of four to five and give each group the word wall words written on index cards. Students take turns selecting an index card and using the structure either to describe an action or character from the novel or using the structure correctly in a sentence. If the group agrees that the student correctly used the structure then that person gets to keep the card, if not the card gets passed to the next student in the group and that person has two opportunities

IB Unit Planning / Los Baker van a Perú

Image taken from: http://teacherknowledge.net/cohort2/?p=128

Warning: This turned into a much larger post than I had intended and maybe serves as a better reflection on unit planning than a sharing of resources and/or ideas.

My school is IB which, in part, means that our curricular units have to be centered around a "Statement of Inquiry" that we explore and connect back to throughout the unit. Because most of my units are centered around a novel (TPRS readers) and are taught for the sole purpose of facilitating language acquisition among low to mid novice learners, the IB aspects of unit planning have, prior to now, largely taken backseat in my curriculum planning. Previously, the following two questions: "Is this useful vocabulary for my students to know?" and "Is this the most effective way to teach and assess acquisition?" were my guiding questions for everything I did in the classroom. However, I've found that with the increasing emphasis on IB throughout our school and the recent mandate that Spanish 2 align it's curriculum with French 2 (still not convinced about the benefit of this but that's another blog post...) that I better jump on the bandwagon in a major way. Luckily for me, there is nothing incompatible with how I've been curriculum planning and the IB framework for developing units. And, while it does create more work for the teacher, I believe it also makes the units more rich and interesting for students. Below is a quick outline of how I develop IB units using the TPRS novels in the classroom:

1. Read the novel! Obvious but indispensable first step.

2. Pull out the major themes/topics of each chapter and the novel as a whole.

3. Develop a "Statement of Inquiry" based on the topics of the text.

4. Decide the assessment criteria (in non-IB speak this just means determining which skills- reading, writing, speaking, listening- you will be focusing on throughout the unit. IB recommends focusing on no more than two at a time and this, along with the emphasis on summative assessments, has long been problematic for me. Again, another blog post.) and develop a unit assessment. I am currently using ACTFL's Integrated Performance Assessments as a model for summative assessment tasks.

5. Stockpile as many authentic resources as possible (Pinterest is a great place to do this) related to the topics (Statement of Inquiry) and aligned to the assessment criteria.

6. Write & Incorporate individual lessons within the curricular unit that allow students to explore these themes.

For our current unit, we are reading "Los Baker van a Perú." From the novel, I've pulled out the following topics of interest:

• Do opposites get along better? 
• Do people behave differently at school than they do at home? 
• Watching television in a different country. 
• Is it important to speak the language of a country you are visiting? 
• Eating in a different country. 
• Is history important?
• Do adults and teenagers have different interests when traveling? 
• Is visiting museums while traveling important? 
• The importance of the potato to Peruvian society. 
• Las líneas Nasca. 
• Cuzco & Incan Civilization. 
• Altitude Sickness. 
• Bad Luck. 

From the above topics, I developed this Statement of Inquiry:

When we travel we can increase our cultural understanding by observing and respecting the social patterns and traditions of the country we are visiting.

The next step was to determine the assessment criteria. For this unit I decided to focus on three. (This goes against the IB recommendation of focusing on only two criteria but for longer units I feel confident that I can incorporate all three effectively.) For the Interpretive Task, Criterion A: Comprehending Spoken & Visual Text.  For the Interpersonal Task, Criterion C: Communicating in Response to Spoken, Written & Visual Text. And finally, for the Presentational Task, Criterion D: Using Language in Spoken & Written Form.

Once the Statement of Inquiry and Assessment Tasks were taken care of, I began to stockpile authentic resources. I really wanted to be careful that these resources were aligned to the assessment criteria and provided and opportunity for incorporating the Statement of Inquiry into the day to day lesson plans. Below is an example of a video (aligned to Criterion A) that I used both to practice listening comprehension and to incorporate the Statement of Inquiry.  The first part of the video is very fast but the second part is slower and more comprehensible. (I uploaded it from a downloaded video but you can find the original here).

Now, how to turn this into a lesson plan? I wanted the lesson to model the assessment criteria I had chosen. That is to say, I wanted the lesson to have an interpretive, interpersonal and presentational component.

I started with a simple warm up: ¿Cómo se define «un viajero»? ¿Cómo se define «un turista»?

Then I developed a comprehension guide for the video. I tried to use vocabulary structures from the unit but without repeating the exact vocab used in the video. The idea being that students would have to comprehend what they heard not just listen for key words within the video. Still a work in progress.

Turista o Viajero Comp Guide

Next, in pairs of two, students completed the questionnaire in order to determine if they were "más turista" or "más viajero." (Questionnaire adapted from original  by Federico Escudero Álverez on Todoele.)Students shared out from this activity, explaining both their own results and those of their partners.

Turista o Viajero Questionnaire

Finally, before leaving, I asked students to complete a "Think, Pair, Share" activity with the following questions:

¿A dónde llevarías un turista en nuestra ciudad? ¿A dónde llevarías un viajero?

Then I used equity cards to call on three or four students and have them respond to the question. Done and on to the next authentic resource!

Four Corners

I love Four Corners for a variety of reasons. It's great for reviewing, to get a reaction, to help students process information. I like to give students a somewhat controversial statement that I know are going to generate varying opinions and have students defend their opinions to one another. They're also just great for getting students up and moving or mixing it up. I have the ones below are those that I have up in my classroom and I use them all the time.

4 Corners En español

La actuación en la clase

Estoy pasando el verano en Middlebury, Vermont dónde estoy estudiando en el programa de maestría de español. A partir de los helados, el paisaje y, claro, el programa, lo mejor de estar aquí es que hay muchos maestras como yo y es una gran oportunidad para compartir ideas y estrategias para emplear en la aula. Esta noche, mientras cenábamos, una amiga mía me contó una práctica que ha aprendido a través de las jornadas de pedagogía que tienen aquí en la universidad (desgraciadamente, no estuve yo en la jornada pero, ¡tuve que entregar un ensayo!). El objetivo es adquirir el vocabulario por medio de repeticiones. (Por lo general, estoy a favor de hacer las repeticiones yo misma, sin embargo, como yo enseño en la escuela intermedia, hay que variar las actividades para que los estudiantes no se aburran.) La técnica mezcla un poco de las clases de actuación con las clases de lenguaje y consiste de lo siguiente:
 1) Pedir que los estudiantes caminen alrededor de la clase. Mientras caminan hay que mirar a uno y otro directamente en los ojos.
 2) Después de un par de minutos, decirles que tienen que mirar a uno y otro con caras que usted les mande. Por ejemplo, puede decirles “Ahora, quiero que todos pongan una cara enfadada” o “Ahora, pongan una cara triste”.
 3) Después de cuatro o cinco rondas así, mandarles repetir una palabra o una frase (algo que quiere que sepan) con una mirada especial. Así, puede mandar que los estudiantes repitan la palabra “bosque” mientras están mirándose con caras enojadas.
 4) Dirigir a los estudiantes a sentarse con un compañero y explicar que van a usar el vocabulario que están estudiando para hablar entre ellos. Sin embargo, tienen que hablar como si existiera una relación entre ellos. Por ejemplo, si la clase está aprendiendo la frase “se aleja de”, puede mandar que ellos repitan la frase como si ellos fueran madre e hijo o maestra y estudiante. Así, tienen que usar la entonación para transmitir el mensaje y, a través de las repeticiones, adquirirán el vocabulario. Si quiere extender la lección o desafiar a los estudiantes se puede pedirles crear una conversación con el vocabulario dado. Sin embargo, se debe tener en mente que la meta es que los estudiantes adquieran las palabra y no que las produzcan.